Contractor's Workmanship Assailed By Consumers

July 31, 1986|by DEBBIE GARLICKI, The Morning Call

An Allentown home improvement contractor who allegedly has victimized about 25 consumers since 1981 may face a $2,500 civil penalty and three months in jail if a Lehigh County Court judge finds him in contempt.

Raymond Thompson, operator of R&G Home Improvement, 725 Cedar St., did shoddy work, incomplete work or no work at all for consumers who paid him and, in some cases, never saw him again, according to state Deputy Attorney General Michael F. Butler.

A total of 13 people who lodged complaints against Thompson filled the jury box at a hearing Tuesday before Judge Robert K. Young. David E. Lindemuth, an agent in the Allentown office of the attorney general's Bureau of Consumer Protection, spoke on behalf of five consumers who could not attend the hearing.

Butler said Thompson was charged in 1983 with violating the Unfair Trade Practices Act and Consumer Protection Law.

"He would take money from the consumers and not do the work, or would do part of the work and not come back to complete it, or failed to come back to do repairs on work he had done shabbily," Butler said.

In one case, Thompson was charged with taking a $450 down payment from a consumer who hired him to do concrete work. Thompson reportedly never returned.

Another consumer paid Thompson $500 of a $1,010 contract to replace a basement window, a stucco porch wall, a sidewalk and a curb, according to Butler, and it was the last time the consumer heard from Thompson.

Thompson allegedly told another customer he would remove bathroom tile and replace it with no-wax flooring. Again, the same alleged result after $120 was paid.

Most of the people are elderly, Butler said.

Thompson also was charged with failing to give customers cancellation notices with their contracts.

When goods or services worth $25 or more are sold in the home, the contract must have on its face a notice that the consumer has three business days to cancel it.

The consumer, by law, should receive duplicate copies of a cancellation notice so he can send one copy to the seller and keep one for his records.

Thompson, who also operated under the name "Ray's Contracting," signed an "assurance of voluntary compliance" in August 1983 in which he agreed he would not continue the alleged business practices. An assurance of voluntary compliance is not an admission of guilt.

Butler said Thompson violated the terms of the assurance by failing to refund money to some of the customers - $5,000 in one case - and using the same practices with new customers. In 1984, Lehigh County Judge David E. Mellenberg ordered Thompson to comply with the original 1983 assurance, and Thompson agreed to abide by it.

The order said Thompson would face a $2,500 penalty and three months in prison if he violated the order.

By February 1985, Thompson still had not paid back customers and allegedly had victimized more, Butler said.

A bench warrant for his arrest was issued by Young, and Thompson spent one night in prison awaiting a hearing.

The hearing was continued when Thompson, accompanied by a lawyer, assured the judge he would sell his property to pay back customers.

However, the complaints against Thompson continued to mount and resulted in this week's hearing.

Thompson didn't attend Tuesday's hearing, at which Butler requested that another bench warrant be issued.

The people who attended the hearing expressed frustration over the loss of their money and the inability to get it back.

Some were not satisfied with the three-month prison term Thompson could get and said it is too short.

Butler said he suspects that there are more victims than the 25 customers who filed complaints with the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few more out there," he said, adding that some may have filed civil suits and had judgments entered against Thompson but never have been able to collect on them.

Some consumers have filed private criminal actions at the magisterial level against Thompson and received refunds.